Romanian players celebrate qualification to second round of 2010 FIVB World Championship

Vienna, Austria, January 5, 2009 - Romania was able to celebrate a third win in the first round of the 2010 FIVB Men’s Volleyball World Championship at the Budo Center in the Austrian capital. The team of well-known head coach Stelian Moculescu defeated in three sets (25-21, 25-20, 25-21) newcomer Bosnia & Herzegovina. Thanks to this success Romania ranked first in the pool and qualified for the next round of the World Championship.

From the beginning of the match the Romanian team left no doubt about who was going to leave the court the winner. The pre-favorite who had already defeated Austria the previous day took 105 minutes to walk over Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Moculescu was satisfied with the achievement of his players, especially since he took over the coaching job only a couple of weeks ago.

“Congratulations to the team. Especially their defense was very good,” Moculescu said.

Bosnia’s head coach Dalibor Stevic congratulated the Romanian team for this brilliant achievement in Vienna and likewise was not too unsatisfied with his team: “We are looking forward to the next international competitions and the goal is to bring more players to play at international level.”

Austria’s Men´s Volleyball team and local head coach Claudio Cuello were able to finish this tournament with a victory in their final game against Hungary in straight sets (25-15, 28-26, 25-20). This left them ranked as the runner-up of the tournament.

From the first set the Austrians fully controlled the game. Their good service brought many difficulties to the Hungarians and setter Lukas Weber made it easy for his teammates to hit the ball perfectly. The result was an easy and quick 25-15. With the beginning of the second set the Austrians slowed down a bit their rhythm and were left behind on the scoreboard (9-14). After the substitution of Marcus Guttmann and a 7-1 point run the team was able to catch up and went ahead. Finally they got back to where they had left their job in the first set and won the second set 28-26.

The up and down effect continued in the third set, as Austria led at the beginning before struggling before the first technical time-out. After making five points in a row Philip Schneider and his teammates pulled away and finished the final set at 25-20.

Claudio Cuello, head coach of the Austrians said, “We had some difficulties in the preparation due to some illnesses, this is why it was not possible for us to play on the same level on all three competition days. I am really satisfied with my team’s motivation. If I could single out and name an excellent player, that would be libero Philipp Kroiss who was nominated for the first time as a member of the national team.”

Peter Kleinmann, President of the Austrian Volleyball Federation, said, “We were trying to qualify to the next round; however we can still be satisfied with the results. To win two games 3-0 in a tournament like this shows that we are on the right track. Unfortunately we had a bad day on Sunday and lost against Romania and that is why we have not achieved our goal. Now the Austrian Volleyball Federation is preparing for the next tasks. In the next days the women’s team will start with the campaign for the 2010 World Championships, the boys Under-19 and the girls Under-18 will start with their European Championship Qualifications.”